For EveryDollar Premium users, we have a new tool called the Paycheck Planner, which helps you allocate your spending according to when you are paid during the month. Since allocated spending is not built into the budget software itself, some of our customers have sent in some very creative ideas on how to use EveryDollar with an allocated spending budget.
Example 1 Summary - I create new income items for each paycheck I plan to receive and then number each budget item accordingly, so I know which paycheck it will come out of.
1. Create new Income budget items for each paycheck you plan to receive. Name them something like Paycheck 1 and Paycheck 2.
2. Create or rename your budget items to include the number of the corresponding Income budget item. If your mortgage will come out of Paycheck 2, label it as Mortgage 2. If you have some groceries coming out of Paycheck 1 and some groceries coming out of Paycheck 2, create another budget item so you have Groceries 1 and Groceries 2.
3. Once you get your budget set up with all of these items and amounts, you will add transactions manually or drag and drop transactions (if you have banks connected). This takes a little work upfront, but you can copy your budget from month to month, and then you'll only need to update Planned amounts if they change.
Example 2 Summary - I delete and rename budget groups as Paycheck 1, 2, etc. and add budget items within those budget groups.
1. In this example, we recreate our budget to have "Income", "Savings", "Paycheck 1", "Paycheck 2" and "Debt" as our budget groups.
2. Paycheck 1 and Paycheck 2 contain some of the same budget items, but those transactions should come out of the corresponding Income budget item.
If you have a creative way of allocating your paychecks within EveryDollar, we'd love to hear from you!